1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a system and method for connecting conventional ordering materials, such as catalogs distributed in printed form or on CD-ROM, to Internet based purchasing and distribution systems.
2. Background Description
E-commerce applications where companies conduct business over the Internet have been growing in recent years. More and more businesses are developing and using Internet web sites for doing business. However, these web sites often operate in parallel with existing methods relying on faxes and the telephone. Most businesses continue to order replenishable products out of printed catalogs using faxes and the telephone to place orders. This is acceptable when the customer is ordering products infrequently or where there just a few products and a salesperson's intervention is required.
When items that need to be ordered are replenishable, and thus ordered more frequently, and there are many items to choose from, each with many potential options, it would be ideal to order them electronically. However, web sites simulating large catalogs are very difficult to navigate and are generally too tedious to use.
Businesses ordering items over the phone and via faxes find the task equally tedious and at best error prone. End-users or salespeople must manually write down part numbers, quantities and the like. While this approach has long been used, businesses are seeking ways of making this process more efficient, because initial entry of orders, and correction because of human error in manually writing down information, is costly.
Catalogs with tens of thousands of parts with many associated options related to quantities, colors, sizes, models and the like are very expensive and tedious to develop, and the result is an enormous catalog that is end-user cumbersome. It would be desirable to have catalogs that are more compact and easier to use. Most vendors already have existing catalogs that they would prefer to continue using with minor changes, rather than redo the entire catalog. Redoing the entire catalog is expensive, time consuming and may disorient users familiar with the existing catalog.